Category: Women Who Think to Much
Mother and daughter~For Jeanne Marie
From Michelle Marie, my talented, creative friend, a very precious gift. Thank you…
What are “the ties that bind,”
what forms the substance of the
invisible umbilical cord that flows
between a mother and daughter?
What joins us together even when we’re apart?
Why does my daughter’s heartache bruise my heart,
why do I feel her pain, how do
I know before she even tells me?
Jeanne Marie
Baby girl, flowers, photos and quote by Jeanne Marie~
Wings
My poor butterflies…
Their tiny backs contorted
Under the weight of your secrets
You thought whispering
To the wind was a solution
But you forget the winds messengers
They pluck each secret from your lips
Absorb the words you utter
Their colours dim according to
The weight of your words
Bright yellows, sky blues
Turn to ash and storm clouds
Write your secrets down
Burn the evidence,
The butterflies can only handle so much.
Find your safe place…and go there in your mind when things are rough…
The Gift
Happy Mother’s Day Mom…
She picked up the book
and placed it back on the shelf
when she saw the price.
But…then she thought of her daughter
to send her this treasure, would be a delight.
She lovingly touched the glossy roses
she’d wanted this kind of book for ages.
She pictured her daughter’s garden, then
she paid the price and mailed the pages.
As she weeded her own, she softly smiled
imagining the distant flowers in full-bloom
and she thought of her daughter all the while.
Little did she see that the greatest gift
she’d sent was the bloom of her love
carried on the petals of a book
delivered by the sliver of a mid-summer’s moon.
To give her child what she herself desired
seemed to be the mother’s greatest pleasure.
God made this woman quite special
and then He doubled it twice over
beyond her daughter’s measure.
by Jeanne Marie
Mother’s Day. “Do You Remember When You Used To Call Me Grace?”
The scent of fresh coffee lured me from my bed. As I filled my birthday mug, (“I’ve got it all, a career, a family and a headache!”) the coffee’s aroma triggered a flood of memories. I closed my eyes and I was standing in front of my father’s wood stove, offering my small shivering body up to its’ warmth, as I watched the percolator pop coffee into the glass knob on the top of the pot. The ancient farmhouse kitchen smelled of yesterday’s baked bread and stale tobacco, the morning’s burning wood and fresh coffee.
I didn’t want to open my eyes because I knew that the reality of last night’s supper dishes and my dog’s wet pee papers would rush up to greet my eyes. It felt comfortable to feel eight years old, to revisit my childhood, if just for a few moments.
I could see my mom as…
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Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. I Am She
I AM SHE
There was a time when my mother was middle-aged and me?
I was young and naive, not a care in the world; the arrogance of youth was on my side,
I was a footloose hippie girl and I thought love was free.
Her skin was firm and tanned, black waves of hair fell to her shoulders,
softly surrounding her fair face, bosom quite generous,
legs as fine as any model, she was my mother,
but with flower child simplicity, I used to call her Grace.
She was spirited back then, although she seemed quite old to me,
and how did I become imprisoned while she has learned to fly–a butterfly set free?
Tonight, as I glance into the mirror, my middle-aged face stares back.
Have I become her, and she, the child I used to be?
At seventy-three she’s still a beauty, but time’s fire has burned…
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Daughter, Mother and Grandmother…
From the newsletter, Women who Think Too Much, 2000
DAUGHTER, MOTHER AND GRANDMOTHER. ALL WROTE ABOUT AGING, WITHOUT DISCUSSING IT WITH EACH OTHER.
A COINCIDENCE OR THE TWILIGHT ZONE?
THINGS I LEARNED THE HARD WAY
1. Johnson’s Stretch Mark Cream doesn’t really prevent or remove the one million stretch marks motherhood is bound to deliver, although it does keep each and every stretch mark incredibly soft!
2. When the man in your young life tells you that you’re much too pretty to wear make up, he’s really saying, “Go scrub your face or someone may actually take a second look at you!”
3. Never call your mother for a ride home, from the 24 hour Wal-Mart, because you locked your keys in the car. Not unless you want a lecture about shopping alone after midnight!
4. Don’t call your mother when she’s writing in Computerville; she won’t even remember the phone call!
5. If your mother is a writer, choose your words very carefully, because if she’s like my mother, she’ll hear a story in every syllable!
6. Never tell her she’s too old to have a life!
LOVE YA MOM, JODIE
TIME
An old woman
Sits by herself
Staring at her past
Arranged on a shelf.
Time is money
Or so they say
Time stands still
Then slips away.
A baby is born
His first sound
An angry cry,
A rose in bloom
is ready to die.
Time waits for no one
Then just marches on,
It goes by too fast
Then it takes too long.
by Jeanne Marie
THOUGHTS ON GROWING OLDER
With a smile on my face I meet the dawn
Tomorrow’s not here and yesterday’s gone.
I have just today to live my life
So I’ll try my best to keep out strife.
I’ll count my blessings, one at a time
And the first, and the best, is that
today is mine.
My youth has gone into the night
And old age is no longer a fright,
I face the mirror with eyes away
And don’t see the wrinkles or the hair
that’s gone gray.
I only see the life within
Greeting this old face with a grin,
I say “Old girl, you’ve tried your best,
so relax, and let God handle the rest.”
by Grace (my Mom)
Mothers and Daughters
A Few Disorderly Thoughts From A Daughter Who Became A Mother
What are “the ties that bind,” what forms the substance of the invisible umbilical cord that flows between a mother and daughter? What joins us together even when we’re apart? Why does my daughter’s heartache bruise my heart, why do I feel her pain, how do I know before she even tells me?
A mother loves her son, but she knows from the day he’s born that he’ll only let her nurture him, hug and kiss him, until he starts to become a man. His first day of school, he tells her, “Don’t walk me up to the door Mom, I don’t want the kids to see me with my mother, they’ll laugh at me.” And this is kindergarten! She walks home in tears; he has begun to cut the cord. It hurts, but she realizes that he only…
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I believe in the healing power of pink…
Following The Pink
If I could…
If I could live in the words I write, I’d write a story where my heart was never broken.
Not Beaten After All
This yellow hibiscus
has been rained on
and it has been beaten
senseless by the wind.
It has been bent
almost to the ground
and it fought storms
to stand back up again.
It stands proud and
yes, it stands tall.
It was shaken
and it was bruised
But not beaten after all.
Painting Your Life…
Paint Me Gone
I Don’t Hear You
I REMEMBER…I KNOW
I REMEMBER
Remember when you used to bring flowers home for me?
You would walk in the door after work with that sexy smile
Holding a dozen yellow and pink roses, for no reason at all.
Lunch box in your right hand, my flowers in your left
“Baby, Honey, Sweetie?” Names for me you would gently call.
I REMEMBER
Remember when we took a nap before dinner
Because we were too needing to wait for bedtime?
Sometimes all we did was giggle, snuggle and kiss
Sometimes the snuggling led to so much more
Loved your kisses, most of all, that’s what I miss.
I REMEMBER
Remember when we danced, how you held my body close?
So close my mama said it was indecent, your hands caressing
My back all the way down to my…well you know.
All my friends were jealous because with every move
With every touch, it was obvious you loved me so.
I KNOW
I know it is those memories that keep me trapped here
Because for years no loving touch have you been showing.
Years and years of silent and lonely days, dark and empty nights.
You buy me anything you think I want, when all I want is you.
Now, I cry myself to sleep, alone, after each mean and crazy fight.
I KNOW
I know we had something so intense, so strong
A love only one of us could have destroyed.
I know, dear God, I know, the exact moment it happened
Exactly when my handsome hero, my Marlboro Man,
Became a man who left me hanging over a black void.
I REMEMBER
Remember all the times I left our house, boxes in my hands?
Four times, with all I owned, swearing that this time was the last.
Remember how we both cried; remember how we felt so lost?
So home I came and tried again, to find your love, to find your heart.
Only one leaving left, so if you just sit and watch me hurting again…
I promise you my last.
Daddy’s Bottomless Black Pit
Daddy’s Bottomless Black Pit
Clean my face, wipe dripping tears of blood that come from deep within. Born black and blue and forced to pay for my daddy’s kin. He was raped and abused, treated like a piece of shit. Little baby girl born to that unhealed victim, I had no place to grow, to learn or to run. So, I lived beneath the ground cradled ungently, in my Daddy’s arms, no place I fit…except deep down inside my Daddy’s bottomless, black pit.
Codependency
Codependency
Loved you until I was drained, empty
nothing left of the love as I recall,
refuse to lose my mind, so it is over
bruised brain won’t survive another fall.
Driven quite mad, aching for your touch
spirit crushed by your negative weight
splintering my weakened, damaged bones.
Set free? Set free? Shit, it is too late.
Too late to be an innocent little girl
too late to chase the passions of 17
too late to write that frigging book
but all my floors are sparkling clean.
My womb has left, cut from my body
so, too late to be a better mother
loved ones from my hands I dropped
always ran, hid beneath the covers.
Some other day, some other love
some other life, any but my own
thought I had time to find happy
old came first, please leave me alone.
Hopes shattered and then returned
laid to bleed in my hollow heart
the doors I had no will to open
never found the strength to depart.
Windows I painted closed, proud…
I held my ground…I took a stand
never seeing what would be forfeited
manipulations, I did not understand.
Never added up the sinister expense
of investing in a love already lost
relying on vows of a better tomorrow
never analyzed the enormous cost.
Driven by deceits, the knife sliced deep
guided by the sharp edges of yesterday
writing a check for the lies I believed
emptied the piggy bank, how will I pay?
Learning
OMG. If only …
It was knowledge
I know it was,
Before you had knowledge
You were free,
Free to spread you wings
Test your limits
But now that terrible knowledge
Is a crushing weight
Snapping your spine
You’re losing altitude
Been driven to the bone yard,
Where all other dreamers
Lie impaled by knowledge
That fuzzy memory of freedom
Is floating past you
And you are just that little bit
Too slow to reach it,
Memories of freedom will plague
You, make you wish
Knowledge had never found you
That you had remained
Blissfully unaware.
Another Chance
A homeless man and I crossed paths today
As he looked hopefully into my eyes
I’m ashamed to say, I looked away.
His angry face, his dirty, tattered clothes
they frightened me, although for all I know
I scared him with my new car, fancy clothes.
Jesus said He is the beggar at our door
He lives among the homeless in the street.
All day I fretted at what I hadn’t done
said hello or shared money so he could eat.
I used to roll down my window at the stop light
and hold out dollars to the countless homeless
and it always felt like doing that was right.
I stopped giving freely a few years ago
after I brought food and blankets to a family
holding signs that said, “We are hungry.”
and they turned my offerings away.
“We can only accept cash,” they said.
so I stopped giving without noticing
to the homeless after that rueful day.
Have I become so cynical and
and is it a million dollar business
as I have read? Maybe. I just don’t know.
A poor excuse even even to my ears
that all should pay for one group of cons
and my habit of giving should flip to no
when I had given joyously for so many years.
This man deserved a smile and kind words
and brave soul that I am, I looked away.
Now, I drive the streets seeking his face
and if I see him, I will do right by him today.
Say Something…
The past looms ever present, but this moment is God’s present to me. I won’t ignore my present by holding yesterday’s regrets in front of my eyes. I cannot change the past, but today, the present is mine. I will create good memories. I will hold this moment. I will laugh and I will play. I will live today, love me today, appreciate the people who love me today. I will share my present today. Tomorrow, I might take it back. Jeanne Marie
Turn your face to the SUN~photo from Jeanne Marie
The Past…Someday
Old low burning flames
memories under the bed
like pieces of an old game
at night, fast asleep
they blister inside your head.
Upon waking, you weep.
pictures of a love lost
broken glass
beneath your feet.
Regrets flash by
on your mind screen
you still pay the cost
but you’re stuck in now
lost…forever it seems.
How can that old love
still make you cry?
Was it a nightmare
or was it a dream?
Is the past ever gone
is it ever wiped clean?
Wake up, clear your mind
push old passions away
get on with your life
because today will be
the past…someday.
by Jeanne Marie
Oh The Games…
Old pain
starts infringing.
Old scars
still are singeing.
A new life
starts unhinging.
New tears
for an old day.
No mercy
comes our way.
Oh the games
our minds play.
Women Who Think Too Much by Jeanne Marie 
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